UK 4.99 US $10.00 AUS $ 11.00 CDN $ 10.00 DKK 80.00 F 9.00 D 11.00 NL 9.00 I 9.50 J 1780 SGP $ 18.20 E 9.00 SEK 80.00 CHF 16.00 AED 50.00 SEPTEMBER 2015 Peep show! Gucci s dramatic new direction revealed *THE STUFF THAT REFINES YOU Artist s model In the studio with Marc Quinn and muse Wave theory Setting sail with Konstantin Grcic Cut above A sharp-edged slice of new fashion, design, art and architecture Making shapes Hussein Chalayan is lord of the dance Spring action Inside NYC s new creative hyperspace Elie Saab goes up a gear on Avenue George V Radical retail in Athens, Berlin and Tokyo Ralph Lauren s chocolate brownie
SEPTEMBER 214 Pillar talk Classic lines and contemporary looks entwine in an Italianate garden 224 Curtain call Sharp cuts and this season s stand-out skins take centre stage ARCHITECTURE 156 Mirror mirror Elie Saab reflects on his new Paris store 184 Lofty ambitions Spring Studios bounces into Tribeca with a major new hub for downtown creativity ART SHIRT, 500; TROUSERS, 495, BOTH BY SAINT LAURENT BY HEDI SLIMANE. BERET, 225, BY WILLIAM CHAMBERS MILLINERY. GLASSES, 189, BY GUCCI. BELT, 240, BY LANVIN. SEE PAGE 214 FASHION 112 Jewellery box The many facets of Elie Top s new Parisian salon 117 The brave and the bold Daring new design chiefs 133 Floor show Refined retail, from Athens to Tokyo 145 Aussie rules The strict forms of Valentino s Antipodean muse adorn the catwalks 202 Off the wall How to cut a dignified dash on New York s gallery scene 140 Point break The gallerist duo taking on one of Paris most hallowed art spaces 148 Full stretch Hussein Chalayan s shapeshifting show at Sadler s Wells 166 Human nature British artist Marc Quinn and his muse, dancer Jenny Bastet, collaborate on a new body of work DESIGN 122 Ocean swell The Hugo Boss yacht, fitted out by Konstantin Grcic, is ready to race 128 Silver lady The sterling work of LA jeweller and designer Sophie Buhai 046
Point break A Paris duo bring sharp practices to the city s gallery scene PHOTOGRAPHY: ALICE ROSATI WRITER: AMY SERAFIN It s not easy to lay claim to a legendary address. When Victoire de Portalès and Hélène Nguyen-Ban recently took over the fabled Yvon Lambert gallery in Paris, they turned to voodoo to make it their own, asking the Cameroon-born, Belgium-based artist Pascale Marthine Tayou to work his magic. Lambert had been an influential figure on the French art scene for close to half a century, staying consistently on the cutting edge. He made his name by introducing Parisians to minimalists and conceptualists such as Sol LeWitt and Carl Andre, and was also the first contemporary gallerist to move into the Marais. Tayou created an exhibition in this space like a rite of transition: enormous wooden stakes piercing the walls, good luck charms and an exotic tree of life. Held earlier this year, the show was a prequel of sorts before a second phase of reconstruction this summer and the official opening of the new VnH Gallery this autumn. De Portalès and Nguyen-Ban first met a decade ago, during a dinner at the Centre Pompidou. De Portalès comes from an aristocratic French family and has spent her career in contemporary art, notably developing international markets for the art dealer Thaddaeus Ropac. Nguyen-Ban grew up in Africa, the daughter of a Vietnamese father and an Alsatian mother, and worked in fashion for Nina Ricci and LVMH while privately collecting art by the likes of Zhang Xiaogang and Damien Hirst. At a certain point they both felt ready to strike out on their own, and made plans to open a gallery together. They spent two years travelling the world, looking for artists to represent. Beyond Europe and North America, they divvied up the globe. De Portalès took advantage of her familiarity with South America and the Middle East, while Nguyen-Ban concentrated on what she knew best, Africa and Asia. We ve rarely, if ever, refused to visit an artist s atelier, notes the latter, saying that they are open to anything.» We are OPEN to anything; we have rarely, if ever, refused to VISIT an artist s ATELIER VNH GALLERY CO-FOUNDERS HÉLÈNE NGUYEN-BAN (LEFT) AND VICTOIRE DE PORTALÈS, WITH SWEET THORNS, 2015, BY CAMEROONIAN ARTIST PASCALE MARTHINE TAYOU NGUYEN-BAN WEARS DRESS, 1,220, BY HERMÈS. DE PORTALÈS WEARS DRESS, 1,775, BY SALVATORE FERRAGAMO. SANDALS, 430, BY ESTEBAN CORTAZAR FOR STOCKISTS, SEE PAGE 240 140
Art
Art LEFT, AHEAD OF SUMMER RENOVATIONS AND THIS AUTUMN S OFFICIAL OPENING, VNH GALLERY S FACADE WAS DEVOTED TO CLOSE(D) WALL, 2015, BY PASCALE MARTHINE TAYOU, DURING ITS FIRST SHOW, GRI-GRI BELOW, THE SHOW ALSO FEATURED TAYOU S SACRED CALABASH, COFINERIE, DIABLES AND BLACK HANDS Fashion: Mari David Hair: Olivier De Vriendt Make-up: Carol Hannah Photographer s assistant: Chang Anhao Production: Mily Kadz Their roster, still under wraps as Wallpaper* goes to press, includes up-and-coming artists as well as established names such as Swiss artist Olivier Mosset. While sourcing and securing artists, the pair also hunted for a gallery location in Paris. They told their realtor they dreamed of a space like the one Yvon Lambert had occupied in the Marais since 1986. Then one day last year the telephone rang. It was Lambert, who d heard the women were looking for a gallery and told them he was closing his, if they wanted to take over the space. We were so excited we couldn t sleep, says Nguyen-Ban. The duo hired the American-born architect Elliott Barnes to redo the 800 sq m building (he had already renovated an apartment for Nguyen-Ban). Barnes moved the front door from one side to the centre, to create a more open, impressive entrance. He stripped the interior back to its original bones, transforming stockrooms into gallery space, more than doubling the exhibition area, and exposing more of the glass roof covering this one-time industrial hangar. It s a striking location. And yet, some feel the partners are crazy to take on such a project now. People say to us, Everyone else is closing and you re opening, laughs Nguyen-Ban. Maybe we re a little bit kamikaze. As Lambert himself stated on his way out the door, money dominates the art market these days. SHOWING IN OCTOBER VnH Gallery opens the autumn season with Balthazar, an exhibition featuring Mai-Thu Perret and Olivier Mosset. Both are Swiss Mosset, an established conceptual artist, lives in Arizona, while Perret creates objects, texts and video around an imaginary community of anti-capitalist women living in New Mexico. The gallery will host a dialogue of their work, highlighting their shared interest in the history of minimalism and modernism, 17 October to 23 November. And in the age of Gagosian and other powerhouse dealers, the competition has gone global. Our approach isn t really unique. We re not going to reinvent the gallery milieu, and we aren t pretentious enough to believe we re more intelligent than the others, says Nguyen-Ban. But it s in the context of today s difficult economy, in Paris, that one should try to do things. The models are changing. Fragile projects are dying off and others are being born. She feels that the pair s international backgrounds have prepared them for an increasingly global market. And she claims they are ready to invest all their resources into the gallery not just financial, but in terms of time and energy, too travelling to find artists and collectors, going to fairs, making themselves as visible as possible. As for any lessons the duo took from their first exhibition, Nguyen-Ban remains pragmatic: We learned how to get a five-metre baobab through a two-metre door. 108 rue Vieille-du-Temple, Paris, vnhgallery.com Photography: (facade shot) Claire Dorn, courtesy of VnH Gallery 142